


Acceptable

by letalestrange



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-07 17:41:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16858453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letalestrange/pseuds/letalestrange
Summary: Leta Lestrange was never looking for love. She isn’t sure how it finds her.A one shot about Leta and her relationships.*spoilers for crimes of grindelwald*





	Acceptable

**Author's Note:**

> So I recently saw Crimes of Grindelwald and it broke my heart. I fell in love with Leta and her relationship with Theseus especially so it produced this fic which was written in a free lesson and was originally about 400 words until I expanded it. The rest was written at 1am so apologies if it’s terrible. All mistakes are my own especially as I’ve recently been forgetting how to spell. Also some things may not be accurate but please remember I’ve only seen the movie once and would love to double check details but I have barely any time to get to the cinema recently so it’s based solely off memory.

Leta Lestrange had never expected to find love. The realisation had been made during her Hogwarts years when no one apart from Newt had looked at her with so much as a smile and she had been so incredibly lonely, so lonely in fact that she had considered coming home, back to her father who never failed to remind her of how worthless she was and back to her stepmother who cared more about money than she ever had about being a parent.

Even Newt with his awkwardness and shy tendencies had never been considered a real acceptable candidate for her to marry. He was the second son of a little known family and she was from one of the most distinguished families there was as well as being their only heir. It would never work in their society. They had been something more than friends, that much was true but then he was expelled because of her and she was alone yet again. 

There was also the matter of Newt being too good for her anyway. He was pure, innocent and put the thoughts of others first. Leta was a monster, flawed with mistakes in her past that haunted her. When he insisted that he didn’t care what she had done and that he loved her anyway she would simply give him a sad smile and a knowing look and tell him that he could never imagine the things that she had done. He never seemed to let it phase him but Leta knew that he must have been at least a little bit curious as to what she had done.

There had never been many opportunities at home either. Her father with his fondness for his belt was at loath to let her out of his sight lest she tell anyone about the abuse she suffered at his hand. The assumption had always been that she’d marry a rich pure blood and provide the family with a heir. It wasn’t just expected of her, it was required of her if she wanted to maintain her fathers favour.

The first time such a marriage was brought up to her was the summer before her fifth year. Her father had summoned her to his study and with trepidation she had went, expecting another beating. When she opened the door to find him sitting at his desk she was cautious. What he was suggesting however had awoken a mix of emotions within her. The main one was disgust at the thought of marrying any of his potential candidates but the next was a deep seated fear. Fear that he would succeed and she would end up with one of his choices, stuck in the cycle of being a mother and a wife and never being allowed to make her own choices- much like her younger years.

It was this that compelled her to speak out against it. Her father had silenced her after just a few words and then motioned for her to get into position. Feeling sick to her stomach she complied and watched out her the corner of her eye as he uncoiled his belt. As the first lash stuck her she vowed that she would never be forced to love and that from then on she would make her own choices. Then he hit her harder and she didn’t feel anything except the pain that she was drowning in.

When the time came that she was free of her fathers rule and she still didn’t take any of the opportunities that arose she realised that the absence of a partner wasn’t just from the lack of possibilities in her life, it was a choice, a choice made all those years ago on that ship, a solitude that she had imposed on herself for her actions.

After all how could a monster like Leta ever deserve someone that would treat her with kindness and respect and who would love her. She had made mistakes that had driven anyone who had ever loved her, including Newt, away. She was destined to spend the rest of her life alone paying for the choices that she had made that had led her here, that had hurt so many people.

At first she was content with this notion. She was at fault. Even if she did fall in love and get married how could she do any of the things that people would expect of her. How could she bear children or raise them as a mother should. She couldn’t. Not after what she had done on that fateful night on the ship. Not after what she had done to Corvus. She couldn’t look an innocent child in they eyes knowing the suffering that she had imposed upon her poor innocent baby brother. 

The shortage of relationships in her life was regarded as peculiar by some people and certainly attracted much attention. The women she worked with were desperate for gossip and rather than doing what was expected of them which was doing their duties in silence they would crowd round her and burden her with questions on whether or not she had a gentleman friend. Leta would always give them a deeply sarcastic response and turn around signalling that the conversation was over. They must not have got the hint however as they persisted.

The thing that she resented about this was the fact that this was the only time they talked to her. They never included her in any of their other conversations and when they went off to lunch they would always make a point about getting up and walking out together ,chattering loudly about their plans for that particular day while she would be sitting there alone and solitary. It was then that she cursed the Lestrange name for making her such an outcast in society, for making it so that she would always be seen as a dark wizard determined to bring everyone suffering.

If she were to be truthful thought Leta never did anything to dissipate these qualms. She kept herself to herself and only exchanged pleasantries with most people out of politeness. She spoke to her colleagues when required to do so by her work but otherwise did what she always had done and zoned everyone out. Looking back she may have seemed like a bit of a snob, letting people work status govern her opinions but that was only because they had already let her blood status and name form the basis of their treatment of her.

Despite her pretence that she liked being alone when the loneliness came it came in full force. She would be lying on bed at night reading a book that happened to have companionship in it and she would wonder, wonder what it was like to have someone who cared about her, who put her first, someone who wanted to talk to her just for pure pleasure and who didn’t judge her based on her name and looks. These thoughts would lead to her being crippled by her grief for the way her life had planned out before she would tell herself to get over it and roll over trying to ignore the yearning in her heart for someone.

This was probably why her falling for Theseus Scamander wasn’t as much as a surprise to her as it should have been. They had met abroad on ministry business and had quickly formed an alliance of sorts. When they needed to pair up they did and when their colleagues had all headed off to have lunch Theseus would drag Leta with him to whatever little cafe had caught their fancy. It wasn’t a shock to anyone, least of all them when they started spending more and more time together until they were eventually dating. 

In the early days of their relationship Leta had been fraught with anxiety over it. She worried that as soon as people connected the dots to realise that they were seeing each other that he would be shunned for daring to associate with her. When she mentioned these worries to him he would simply shrug and ask her why she cared in a way that reminded her of Newt so much that it hurt her. Her response was simple. She cared about that because she cared about him and she didn’t want to see him hurt just because of her. Nevertheless Theseus wasn’t deterred and soon she gave up mentioning it to him.

When people finally found out about their relationship through the ministry rumour mill she knew she should have been more worried than she was considering her previous concerns but the truth was that by then she was too deep in infatuation with him that she wouldn’t have been able to let him go even if she wanted to. Aside from the judgemental whispers people knowing really wasn’t as bad as she had imagined it to be and when he had teased her about being him being right her heart had fallen even deeper in love.

They weren’t exactly sure which of their many outings had been the first date but they both agreed that the first official date as a clear cut couple was a little restaurant that he had taken her to. The food had tasted delicious the after dinner kisses even better and it was then that she began to really enjoy her relationship with him and stopped worrying altogether about what people thought of them. 

Deep down she knew she should have been worried about destroying him with the demons that she carried about inside her but the truth was that they were both already destroyed, beaten, battered and torn by the things that they carried in their minds. He had been destroyed by the things that he had seen in the war, the things that no human should ever have had to see and her by her childhood and the secret that she had carried since then. They were cracked, distorted, broken behind repair and that made them perfect for each other  
Again she really should have seen the visit to his mother as foreshadowing of what was to come. What boyfriend takes his girlfriend to meet the mother unless things were really serious and he was considering taking the next step? Back then in spite of everything she had still been blissfully oblivious to all of that and her only worries had been to do with Mrs Scamander. She hadn’t seen her since she had gotten Newt expelled from Hogwarts and was worried about the reception that she would get. Would the women remember her? Would she remember what Leta had done to her youngest son? Theseus tried to calm her but still she fretted.

As it turned out she needn’t have worried. Theseus mother was as welcoming as ever and as they chatted about the Scamander family Leta could feel herself raising more and more until it felt just like old times before her life had got so complicated, before she had had to make so many of these decisions that would effect everything.

The proposal wasn’t all that glamorous. Most people who knew Theseus would have expected something big, a spectacle for the love of his life but Theseus knew Leta and knew how much she would have hated that. Instead he got down on one knee in front of the lake in their favourite park. He had given her a speech about how much he loved her, she had accepted and there had been a lot of kissing. It was small, quiet, intimate and yet it was everything she had ever wanted.

They had told Newt about it at a dinner with him. He had returned from America, leaving that whole mess with Grindelwald behind but every time they tried to arrange something with him he thought up an excuse. Eventually they got a hold of his schedule, found a date that he was free and planned it for then. He couldn’t say no. When they had announced it and showed him the ring he had seemed genuinely happy for them. It was all the blessing Leta needed.

They had intended to set a date soon but then they had been called to Paris to deal with a mess concerning Grindelwald and she doesn’t really get a chance to spend much time with him, too busy pursuing the mystery of her family. At night they were both exhausted to talk but they still use each other for security almost like it’s impossible for one to be without the other. She sees Newt with Tina when she’s there and she’s happy for him that he’s finally found his special someone. She can see the connection between them and knows that they’ll work it out. And maybe, finally they can all have their happy ending.

Only then the whole mess in the Lestrange family tomb happens and she feels as though she’s ruined everything. She confesses what she did to her brother, how she switched the babies and how she killed him. She doesn’t care that they tell her that it’s not her fault because in her mind it’s still is.She feels as though he’s judging her even though he assures her that he’s not and she feels the guilt for her mistake, the guilt that’s always there only this time it’s intensified a hundred time over and she feels like she’s drowning in it unable to breathe. She would happily stay there forever, left to be suffocated by the pain of it all but then Grindelwald comes and she has to pull herself together.

She realises in the middle of it all how much she loves him, how grateful she is to him for seeing the real her. She’s overcame by a desire to protect him and as the battle progresses it becomes increasingly clear what she has to do. Eventually she finds the courage to do it and she walks into the flames towards Grindelwald with the knowledge that she will absolutely die. She turns to the man she loves feeling the need to tell him just one last time how much she loves him and maybe she’s saying it to Newt too because he was the first one to take a chance on her, the first one to teach her what acceptance and love felt like.

Even when Letas spell fails and she knows that her death will have been for more or less nothing she still isn’t angry. She’s said all she needs to said, confessed to everything she needs to and has made sure that the people in her life know that she loves them. It isn’t a bad ending really. She’s at peace with the world and she tried her best to protect him. There was nothing more she could have done.

Even as the pain consumes her and the light starts to fade Leta knows that it’s all been leading up to this moment. This is where her life was always destined to end. She’s made too many mistakes, done too many bad things and maybe this will repay them, maybe dying to try and save someone no matter if it works or not is what she needs to do, maybe it’s her penance as such. When her vision fails and her heart beats for the last time she’s finally at peace with herself and the world for the first time ever. She thinks that might just be acceptable.

**Author's Note:**

> I managed to make myself cry when writing the ending. I was so upset at the films ending:(


End file.
